Friday, February 9, 2018

We Got It Done

There was
paperwork to be signed. Probably the last bit of paperwork my mother
will have to sign in her life, but she did have to sign it and her signature
needed to be witnessed so we met at Atria today with Ed, her stepson, and a
notary.

Her latest
obsession seems to be bits of microscopic "stuff" on the floor. Every
time I see her, she is bent over at a 90⁰ angle
trying to pick up a thread or a bit of dust. They guesstimate
that's how she fell and broke her wrist. Her balance is getting bad
and bending over that far is possibly how she lost it and fell. When
she sits in a chair, she is always looking at the newly vacuumed floor and
finding tiny bits that most people wouldn't even notice and picking it up.

Today she
was also very bothered that there was no quilt on her bed. They had
obviously stripped it to wash but she couldn't process that. All she
knew was that there should be something blue on the bed and it wasn't there.

And her
glasses were gone again, but based on how I found them last time, I looked
on the floor next to her chair and there they were, barely visible behind
the bed, but at least I found them.

So Walt and
I sat there and visited with her until Ed arrived. My mother has
always needed a man in her life to dote on, the be flirtatious with.
She never has with Walt, for some reason, but she gets coquettish when Ed is
around.

We talked with him about the notary and I proudly produced
her (expired) driver's license, which we hoped would suffice as a piece of
identification. He gave us a sheaf of papers to look over and then
realized that he had left the one piece of paper she was supposed to sign at
home. Needless to say he was quite distraught that he had this
notary coming from Sacramento and he would have to send her back and
reschedule.

He went out to the front desk to meet her and break the bad
news and while he was gone, Walt went through the paperwork again.

Ed was gone a very long time and when he came back, it was
with the notary. Turns out, he said, that he realized there were
computers at Atria for use by the residents and he was able to go on line
download the form that he needed, and print it off so all was saved.

We moved to the library where there is a desk and the notary,
who could not accept her driver's license as identification, asked me to get
two people to confirm that she is, in fact, who she says she is. It
was the absolute worst time to get an aid to help. They had
just started serving dinner and everyone was in the kitchen fixing plates,
but two girls were nice enough to come down and they got the identification
made.

Paperwork was presented and she signed the papers.

Thank goodness that's over. It should have been done
long before this, but nobody thought about it. It may be that soon she
will forget how to write her name, so we got it just in the nick of time,
and thank goodness for Atria computers.

I had to laugh when I looked back on "this day in my history"
today. I read the entry for this date last year, where I mention that
the night before I had made short ribs and Red Lobster biscuits for dinner.
Guess what I made for dinner last night...? I live my life in
circles...